


Truce

by ThusWithAKissIDie



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, Only One Bed, Snowed In, everyone shut up they are trying to communicate, food but make it romanticized, friends to enemies to ???, mild hypothermia, welcome to trope city we have
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28268412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThusWithAKissIDie/pseuds/ThusWithAKissIDie
Summary: When Pierre gets lost in a snow storm while hiking, help comes from a place he'd never expected.
Relationships: Pierre Gasly/Esteban Ocon
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33
Collections: GGCEC 2020





	Truce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipintheisland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipintheisland/gifts).



> Alrighty flo, this one's for you. You didn't actually ask for this pairing and i had something else halfway written but this idea always came back around and I've grown really fond of them. Thank you for enduring and encouraging my late night angst prompt chaos and for generally being there. Have fun reading <3

A gust of cold wind hit Pierre straight in the chest and he cursed himself for not checking the weather before stepping out of the little chalet he'd rented with his brothers.

In the morning, the sky had been a brilliant blue, fresh powdery snow glistening in the mountain sun but now the sky had turned dark, the wind was picking up and with every step he took, his snowshoes seemed to get heavier.

He tried to take his phone out to check the distance to the nearest shelter, decided against doing so when he tried to take off one of his gloves though, the cold was simply too harsh to even attempt something that kept his fingers unguarded.

Pierre wasn't even sure he'd be able to hold on to his phone even if he managed to pull it out of his jacket, which was unlikely in itself, so he settled for looking for a trail marker or a path sign.

He was sure he hadn't left the trail.

Yet after a few more minutes of dragging his feet through the deepening snow there was no trail marker to be found.

The wind was definitely picking up and to add to Pierre's misery, the fall of the snow seemed to increase as well, reducing the visibility to just a few dozen meters.

A sudden steep descent almost made him fall, his heart beating to his throat, Pierre tried to steer his toughts away from hidden rocks under the snow, from stupid improbable accidents with massive consequences and instead concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

Finally Pierre spotted a sign a few meters ahead.

It was red, his trail had been blue, but how he'd come off his original path didn't matter now, he could try and deduce that when he was inside, somewhere warm, preferably with a well-stocked kitchen and some hot drinks.

With the premise of safety in his grasp, he sped up a little, all focused on the sign and not on his steps anymore. 

Grey.

White.

Black.

Up.

Down.

The side of Pierre's face seemed to be in flames, no, not flames, not heat, cold.

He was lying in the snow.

His hip felt wrong.

He tried to sit up.

Which way was up?

The snow seemed to fall from every direction, Pierre couldn't determine where the ground ended and the air began, with every breath he took, he seemed to heave icicles into his lungs, his hip hurt, he wanted to move his feet, he tried to move his feet, his feet didn't seem to move, the air was cold, so cold, where were his snow shoes, he'd lost his snow shoes, they weren't even his snow shoes, they were his brother's, the air was too cold, the snow-

Pierre pulled one hand out from underneath him. More on reflex than anything else, he put it up to his face, breathed through his fingers.

It felt easier to do so.

He kept the one hand on his mouth and pushed himself off the ground with the other. The wind hit the wet side of his face with full force.

His hip still felt wrong.

Something prevented him from moving his right leg.

The snow shoe.

It probably was jammed in some way under the snow. 

Pierre took his hand from his mouth. Only shallow breaths, he reminded himself. He put both his hands against the ground for leverage and tried to turn himself around in one motion.

Something cracked and for a second, Pierre was convinced it had been something in his body.

No pain followed, which could mean one of two things. Either it hadn't been a bone, or he couldn't feel it. He did not want to think about the second option too much, and there was only one way to find out which it was.

He looked down.

Half a snow shoe was dangling from his foot.

Pierre breathed a sigh of relief and instantly regretted it when the freezing air hit his lungs once again.

Only after he'd sat up, he realized how royally fucked he was. Drenched from head to toe, lost in a snow storm, hurt and without any means of transportation.

His ski mask had gotten pulled down some time when he tumbled down the steep slope he hadn't seen when he had been all too focused on the sign. He tried to pull it back up to breathe easier and pulled it down again instantly, the cold and wet fabric only impeded his breathing.

A violent shiver shaking his while body reminded him that he'd better get somewhere warm, quickly.

Besides moving, there was not much Pierre could do. 

After trying to stand up and almost getting knocked over again by the storm, he decided to crawl downhill on all fours. 

It was hard to see, his peripheral vision impaired by his ski goggles in addition to the snow obstructing the view beyond a few meters now, but Pierre gladly took any protection he had.

He couldn't feel his hands anymore.

They still did their job, barely, but Pierre wasn't sure for how long his body could still brave the elements. 

He decided to take a short break. 

Just a quick lie-down to catch his breath. 

Just to give his arms and legs some rest. 

A breather, nothing more. 

When he dumped his head on the ground, his goggles scratched concrete.

Concrete. Not snowy earth, concrete. 

A concrete path that wasn't snowed in, that must've been shoveled not long ago. Pierre mustered up all the strength he had left and dragged himself along the path. 

It felt like years of forcing his body to move until he finally saw the cabin. 

There was light shining through the windows, promises of warmth and help and rest. He pushed himself upright and stumbled the last few steps to the door. 

He couldn't find a doorbell, so he tried to ball his hand into a fist but his frozen fingers didn't comply. Instead he just banged his hand on the door. 

No one opened it. Pierre tried to shout but his mouth didn't obey him anymore. His hands hung slack at his sides and when the door swung open, he collapsed into the arms of his savior. 

"What the fuck? Are you alright? Sir, can you hear me? Stay with me, come on, stay- Pierre?" 

Pierre was dragged into the hallway, the door closed behind him. 

Someone took his goggles off along with the light helmet and the ski mask. 

"Fuck, Pierre. What the fuck? Of course it is you. Who else? Come on, you need to help me with this, stay with me, alright?" 

His savior pulled the gloves off his fingers and opened the zipper of his jacket. Pierre held his arms up as well as he could to help. His vision was hazy but the man wanted him to stay awake. His voice was familiar. 

Pierre concentrated on the voice as his shoes and socks were pulled off. 

"What were you doing out there in the storm, you massive idiot? Your toes are frozen. Let's pray to god they're not frozen off, asshole, otherwise you'll be way too easy to overtake. Arms up again."

He raised his arms as told and soon his sweater and undershirt were removed and he was half dragged, half shoved somewhere else. Bathroom. A warm bathroom with a tub that was currently filling with hot water. 

He was let go of. 

"Can you take your pants off by yourself? Because I feel like there's a line that I - that we - shouldn't cross. You're lucky I wanted to take a bath."

Pierre fumbled with his pants and managed to push them down, his long underwear as well so he was left wearing only boxers. 

"Pierre?"

That voice seemed so familiar. Pierre swayed, only just managed to steady himself on the edge of the bathtub. He looked up at his savior. 

His lips seemed to have warmed up enough to cooperate as he could at least manage to get two words out. 

"Fuck, Esteban?"

"Do you think I am happy about this situation? Come on now, you seem concious enough to get in there, take your boxers off as well now."

Pierre was shivering hard now. He knew he needed to warm up and that the bath was a smart move but he really didn't want to strip completely naked before Esteban of all people. 

"I'm going to have to watch you, I'm afraid. Just turn around."

Arguing wasn't going to help, especially not when he still struggled to make his lips form words, so he turned away from Esteban, quickly took his underwear off and stepped into the bathtub. 

The hot water made him hiss in pain when it came into contact with his frozen feet and fingers but Pierre still sat down, Esteban dutifully looking away. 

Neither of them knew how to break the silence hanging between them, so they just sat there, Pierre in the tub, Esteban on the white tiles of the floor, decidedly not looking at each other until Esteban took a towel and held it out to Pierre. 

"I don't know for how long you're supposed to warm up in there and how good it is for your body."

Pierre accepted the towel with a nod and dried himself off, exiting the bathtub as he did. He still felt cold. 

Esteban left the room and returned shortly after with underwear, sweatpants, socks and a sweatshirt which Pierre all too gratefully pulled on, trying to forget who they belonged to. 

Afterwards, Esteban made him sit down on the comfortable couch with a blanket and drink a whole pot of steaming hot tea. Only when Pierre had drunk the last sip, he asked: "How did you get yourself it that state you showed up here in in the first place?"

"Me and my brothers have a chalet rented together somewhere around here," he said, "and this morning they wanted to go skiing but i decided to borrow Paul's snow shoes but well, I guess I didn't look at the forecast and then I got lost and fell."

"And then of course you had to end up here. You should've stayed with your brothers."

"My Brothers! Oh fuck, where did you put my jacket? I need to call them!" 

Pierre shot up, only to be pushed down again immediately by Esteban. 

"I'll go get it, you stay here and warm up."

Pierre complied and soon enough Esteban brought him his phone. 

No reception, of course. It was already dark outside and the storm was still going strong so Pierre had to face the inevitable. 

"I'm going to have to stay overnight, don't I?"

Esteban nodded. It was clear to see he wasn't too thrilled about this either. 

He got up and started to work on something in the kitchen corner while Pierre was dozing off a little. Then Pierre was abruptly brough back to reality when Esteban set a plate down before him.

"It's Carbonara, don't look at me like I'm trying to poison you."

Pierre hesitantly took a fork and tried the offered food. It didn't taste bad. Not at all, on the contrary. Delicious, even. Pierre only realized how hungry he had been after demolishing his third helping while Esteban looked on. 

"It's really good."

Esteban nodded, already collecting the dishes to put in the sink. 

Pierre yawned. It wasn't even eight yet, but he felt tired to the bone. 

"You take the bed."

Esteban's tone left no room for argument and frankly, Pierre was too tired for that anyways so he let Esteban show him to the bedroom, crawled under the covers and was out in a matter of minutes. He didn't even notice Esteban coming in, pulling - under barely muffled cursing - another duvet out of the closet and leaving again. 

When Pierre woke up the next morning, he needed a few seconds to get his bearings on what happened the previous day and where he had ended up. He then needed a few minutes to convince himself not to panic and jump out of the window. 

A look out of said window showed that the storm had let up but the snow reached up to the windowsill. For now, there was no chance of escape. He had to face Esteban. 

Esteban was working away in the kitchen, frying bacon in a pan and boiling something in a pot. 

When Pierre returned from his trip to the bathroom, Esteban waved him over. 

"Do you know how to poach eggs?"

"Theoretically, yes, I've never done it before, though."

Esteban handed Pierre a carton of eggs and motioned to the pot of simmering water. 

"Do it, then."

Pierre grabbed a spoon and stirred the water to create a little whirlpool, then he dropped the egg in. 

It didn't work. The egg just frayed and dissolved into the water. Pierre managed to salvage some of it that looked more on the edible than on the salmonella side, but before he could go for a second attempt, he was interrupted.

"What the FUCK is that?" Esteban wheezed. "I have never seen a sadder egg in my entire life."

Pierre didn't find the whole affair too funny. "Look, I told you I never did this before! What do you expect of me? If you don't like it, do this shit yourself."

Esteban caught his breath, only to erupt into more laughter. 

"No, I can't, I can't do it myself! I don't fucking know how to poach eggs! I can barely do scrambled eggs! I just, needed a change from my own cooking."

"Are you serious right now?" Pierre asked incredulously, and Esteban looked at him and had to sit down on the floor laughing and it struck a chord in Pierre because suddenly he was laughing as well, doubling over until he had to settle against the floor tiles for a few seconds to calm down. 

They both jumped when the water from the pot boiled over, a sharp hiss on the induction plate. 

Esteban quickly lifted the pan with the bacon that was just barely on the edible side anymore while Pierre scrambled to lift the pot. 

Esteban's free hand pressed against his hip. 

Pierre, with wide eyes, stared at him. 

"I need to turn down the stove, come on now, move." 

Pierre felt like an idiot. 

"Stop touching me then."

He hadn't meant for it to sound this unkind but he couldn't take it back now. 

He set the pot back down on the stove and plopped the rest of the eggs in to boil them. Pierre set the little egg-shaped timer he found in the corner to three minutes. 

It ticked away while they set the table. 

They dipped slices of toast into their eggs. 

Esteban was basically inhaling egg after egg and Pierre couldn't stop staring at the egg shells adding up to a small pile on the plate. 

"What are you looking at? I need the protein."

Pierre had no idea how to answer. 

They cleaned the breakfast away and spent the morning sitting in silence. The snow outside showed no sign of melting. 

Pierre's clothes were dry again, so at least that was a good thing. 

He wrote a text to his family group chat and hoped some time in the day he'd get enough reception for it to go through. 

When Esteban managed to fumble the radio on, they were told that the earliest time the snow would melt was in one day, and until then, they'd have to wait and and sit tight.

Over afternoon tea, they talked, more than they had spoken in years. About Pierre's brothers and Esteban's family, about skiing and hiking and the way they'd made each other eat snow when they were kids. 

"You know I don't hate you, right?", Pierre said suddenly. "I know a lot of stuff happened, and some of it was probably my fault as well, but I really don't hate you."

Esteban didn't answer. 

They made dinner together in silence. They ate in silence as well. 

Later, when both of them were pretending to watch the TV, Esteban spoke. 

" _You_ know I was in love with you, right?"

For a second Pierre felt like he was back in the snow storm, up, down, white, grey, black. 

"You what ?"

"I was desperately in love with you. Why do you think I acted like an asshole all the time?"

"Well, probably because you were an asshole?"

"I didn't know how to cope with my feelings! I was too scared to even admit it to myself, god beware anyone else and least of all you."

Esteban was talking himself into a rage now. 

"You were always so, so up there, so confident and I didn't know how to counter that and I was afraid you'd drop me any time and find more interesting friends so I decided to change myself because I thought maybe, if I changed how I acted, if I became someone with more of a personality, maybe then you'd think twice before dropping me. I guess I didn't know you as well as I thought I did."

Pierre shook his head.

"You're an idiot, Esteban Ocon. I liked you the way you were. I couldn't stand you anymore when you changed so suddenly."

"Thank you so much for the explanation. If you believe it or not, I now know that as well."

Someone on TV was getting brutally murdered and they stopped talking, the plot a welcome distraction to the path their conversation had taken. 

The film dragged on and on and Pierre felt himself doze off until he was jolted by something touching his shoulder. 

A soft snore confirmed that Esteban had nodded off and was now sleeping with most of his weight on Pierre. Any movement on Pierre's side would most certainly wake Esteban up, and while Esteban was asleep, he at least couldn't make any more revelations while Pierre still had to process the one from before. 

His mind wandered off to back when they had been racing together as friends, to being excited to sit next to each other on a long train journey, to the first time Esteban hadn't apologized for a shunt on track. How ruthless he had been. Pierre remembered the first time they had flown somewhere together in a private jet, cracks in their relationship already deep but both of them ignoring it. He had woken up in the middle of the flight, covered with a blanket. 

Esteban stirred and pulled Pierre out of his thoughts. Pierre could feel him tense up the second he was fully awake. 

He stood up and stretched. His back cracked. 

"Ready to go to bed?", Pierre asked. 

"Ready for another night on the sofa from hell you mean.", Esteban gave back, stretching again until his shoulders cracked as well. 

Pierre didn't know what made him open his mouth. 

"Don't be an idiot. The bed is big enough for the two of us."

Esteban looked like he wanted to argue, but one more look at the sofa made him change his mind. 

They took turns in the bathroom, changing into sleepwear - in Pierre's case, one of Esteban's t-shirts -, climbed in the bed and turned the lights off.

Pierre wished the sort of hyper-awareness of where exactly Esteban was in relation to him would be something he could have on track with all the other drivers instead of here, but he'd probably exhausted his share of luck for a long time.

He could feel Esteban move around, clearly still awake as well, clearly uncomfortable too. 

Some time he must have dropped off though, because when Pierre opened his eyes again, the sun was up. 

Looking out the window he saw that the snow had indeed melted and for a quick second he entertained the thought to slip away unnoticed while Esteban next to him was still asleep, just to be safe from awkwardness. 

When he got up, Esteban mumbled in his sleep and rolled over. His face was unguarded and he looked more relaxed than Pierre had seen him in years. 

Pierre, instead of leaving, took out his phone. It had reception again. He searched for an article and set to work. 

About twenty minutes later, Esteban padded into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and yawning. 

Pierre held a plate out to him. On it, there lay five perfectly poached eggs. 

"I told you I knew how to do them." he said, puffing his chest. 

"Pierre, I can still hear the Youtube video play. You know nothing, admit it."

Pierre laughed. 

"Shut up and eat your protein, asshole."

There was no malice in his voice, though. 

"You got everything?", Esteban asked as Pierre pulled his boots on at the doorstep. 

"Shut up or I'll start thinking you actually care about me." Pierre replied lightly. "Don't worry, I didn't steal your hoodie."

"No, you only ever stole one thing from me, and that was a long time ago."

"Shut up, Esteban."

"You stole my heart."

Pierre stood in the door, closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. He had just been about to put his second glove on, but decided otherwise. 

He put his still-bare hand to cup Esteban's cheek, then leant forward and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. 

"I think I might still keep it for a while."

With these words, he turned away and walked off, leaving the first trails in the thin, clean sheet of snow.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope yall (but especially flo) enjoyed this, if so, tell me why (aint nothing but a heartache) or leave kudos or send me anon hate on tumblr @formula-whine, stay safe, happy holidays and have a wonderful new year <3


End file.
